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" The DREAM Act \u2014 which would provide an arduous, borderline draconian path to citizenship to people brought illegally to the United States as children \u2014 passed the House yesterday. Later today, after a Republican filibuster, Having been tabled for the moment, it will soon be fiilbustered and thus fail to even come up for a vote in the Senate, dooming it for good. Smart peopple \u2014 Conor Friedersdorf, Michael Gerson, and others \u2014 have presented unasaillable logical arguments for supporting DREAM. It will generate income for the country, encourage a better-educated workforce, reduce the risk to employers of unwittingly hiring illegals, free up Homeland Security resources to address more urgent border-security problems, incentivise military service, foster more cooperation between immigrant communities and law enforcement \u2014 there is quite literally no rational reason to oppose the measure.   This has not stopped the GOP (three of whose elder statesmen, Hatch, Lugar, and McCain, once spearheaded its creation) from opposing DREAM on ostensibly logical grounds. It will, the party&amp;#039;s argument now goes, encourage further illegal immigration. Which is complete nonsense. The bill applies only to those children-of-illegals who have already been here for at least five years; it does not apply to future illegals or their children. But even ignoring that rather important fact, as the GOP is studiously doing in its public statements, the logic is akin to arguing that it incentivises a walk through fire to offer a glass of water on the other side. The fact is that illegal immigrants come here for the immediate benefits of better (though still meager) pay, safer communities, education, and emergency medical care. To them this is worth the terrible risks to themselves and their children \u2014 death en route, extortion by coyotes and employers, expulsion and the severing of families, working conditions not subject to safety regulations or living-wage laws. Illegals don&amp;#039;t accept those terms on the chance that their kids will become citizens. They do it despite the fact that their kids will not become citizens. Despite the fact that it&amp;#039;s already a walk through fire to live in America illegally. Just not as hot a fire as the one that burns in the impoverished regions beyond our borders. Where I disagree with Gerson and Friedersdorf et al is in their belief that appealing to logic, rather than morality, is the way to go about criticizing the GOP on DREAM. The logic is useful. But it&amp;#039;s not sufficient. This is, to anyone with a sense of justice, a moral as well as a practical matter. And the moral good is simple and obvious. It offends any natural sense of justice to punish innocent bystanders simply because they are related to a criminal. It offends even more if those innocents are children. As regards the GOP&amp;#039;s tactics in specific, they should be as ashamed of themselves as Peter was after the third cock crowed. God&amp;#039;s Own Party, the one so eager to court Christian fundamentalists and put the Bible before the law, has retreated to the secular lair of spin and lies to justify its opposition to DREAM. It was, of course, Jesus himself who cast aside the Old Testament view that children were to be punished for the sins of the father. But even the Son of Man can be ignored, it seems, when appealing to the vengeful side of God earns votes. Stay tuned for updates... "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a9014/dream-act-vote-2010-4237483/>